DESPITE the horrible effects of Parkinson’s disease, Muhammad Ali’s eyes shine when asked if he’ll ever grow tired of all the attention he still gets.

“Never,” he whispered to The Post, leaning down to make sure his answer could be heard.

The iconic Olympic hero, three-time world heavyweight champion and most colorful personality ever to grace international sport has appeared in or been the subject of more than 20 films and TV shows – even a Saturday morning cartoon.

Today, almost 40 years after Ali’s fast mouth and even faster fists struck Olympic gold, three new biographies for TV – one from NBC, one from Fox and one tonight on HBO – offer different perspectives on Ali’s life. All recall a time when professional boxing was about building heroes instead of scandals.

Tonight’s debut of “Ali-Frazier I: One Nation … Divisible,” (HBO 10:00 p.m.) kicks off more than a month of Ali-themed programming around the dial. But NBC Sports’ “Twice Born,” a documentary slated to air Sept. 30 during the Olympics, is different than most Ali films in that it tends to focus on his life outside of the ring.

“He doesn’t want us to feel sad for him,” said executive producer Lisa Lax who spent about a year working on the film with Ali and his wife Lonnie. “Which is why I think he’s out there now letting people share his spirit – even in a silent way.”

“Twice Born” weaves interviews with Ali’s mother-in-law Marguerite Williams, President Clinton and a score of Ali’s close friends and former opponents, including heavyweight champ and longtime nemesis, George Foreman.

“You charge him and you beat him up and then finally at the end of it, when you don’t have any more energy, the most frightening thing that can happen to you [happens],” says Forman, describing a brief exchange he had with Ali before he was knocked out during the eighth round of the famous 1974 fight called the “Rumble in the Jungle.”

“He leans over in your ear and whispers, ‘That all you got George,’ and you’re thinking ‘Yep, that’s about it.'”

Some real gems in “Twice Born” are the never-before-seen footage and photos unearthed by the film’s producers who spent more than a year sifting through hundreds of archives and libraries nationwide.

“Some of the stuff we that we had of his parents he has never seen before,” Lax said after a screening of “Twice Born” in New York with Ali and his family.

“I saw him pointing to the screen almost in amazement,” she said.

“My favorite moment was literally right after the film ended,” Lax said. “He got up, and he looked at me, and he blew me a kiss. I melted in my chair; I couldn’t even stand up.”

Fox’s two-hour, unauthorized biopic, “Ali: An American Hero” is scheduled to be aired Aug. 31.

The film stars David Ramsey (“Con Air”) as Ali and follows his life story up to the “Rumble in the Jungle,” but deals more with his friendship with Malcom X, his conversion to Islam and the effects the decision had on his career and relationship with his father.

“That’s the story that was interesting to us, not a boxing movie, said Marci Pool, the Fox senior vice-president who oversaw the film’s production.

“We wanted to do a film that fit with the Fox brand of being edgy and slightly daring and having something to say that isn’t your standard biopic fare,” she said. “This man is a very complicated, intelligent, very deep soul.”

HBO’s “Ali-Frazier I: One Nation … Divisible,” deals specifically with the events leading up to and the personalities behind Ali’s riveting return to boxing at Madison Square Garden in 1971. “This was the fight,” cigar-chomping, ring-historian Bert Sugar says in the film. “That was it – nothing fanciful. The fight, that said it all.”